Nonfiction Reviews

In the summer of 1987, nature writer Bass stumbled into the Yaak Valley in northwestern Montana and fell in love. A native of Houston, Bass worked as a geologist in Mississippi before heading west to find his home and his vocation as a writer. Over the years, Bass became increasingly drawn into the struggle to preserve the valley from logging and development, especially those areas that have yet to be marked by roads. This, his newest title, is a memoir in name only. Eight of the 13 chapters have appeared elsewhere in various forms, and each chapter stands more or less as a discrete essay. Actual biographical material is scant and often repeated, and his main points recur (the need to protect wilderness; the twofold nature of his beloved valley, its biological diversity and human venality and short-sightedness, for example). The book reads best as a series of variations on the theme of how our relation to the wilderness is essential to our being human. Bass is an eloquent defender of his precious valley. (July)

These 10 essays culled from the New York Review of Books appraise the legacy of the Bush presidency and offer stinging critiques of his domestic and foreign policies. Beginning with Joan Didion’s damning portrait of Vice President Dick Cheney (“the central player in the system of willed errors and reversals that is the Bush administration”), the essays cover the consequences of the war on terror, the Guantánamo Bay controversies, Iran’s growing geopolitical influence, the 2008 election and the growing fissures in the GOP. Persuasive and lavishly researched, the essays reach their climax in Arthur Schlesinger’s final published work, where he writes, “History is indeed an argument without end,” and therefore must be vigilantly consulted by those looking to move ahead—a claim that brilliantly justifies the importance of these critical essays. Although the contributors are unanimous in their opposition to the Bush administration and the occupation of Iraq, these pieces do not devolve into mere political screed; instead, they read as a history written on the heels of the present and offer a look at the political landscape of the future. (June)

Iton (Solidarity Blues) examines the link between black popular culture and black politics, the symbiosis between creative artist and political activist in the post–civil rights era. From Cold War era artists and activists (Paul Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry) to Amiri Baraka; from Ella Fitzgerald to Erykah Badu; Dizzy Gillespie to Nas; Richard Pryor to Chris Rock—Iton traces cultural and political developments, engaging with novelists, filmmakers, musicians, standup comedians and visual artists. Always attentive to the dynamics of sexuality, gender and race roles, Iton’s work possesses the depth of wide reading in modernist theory and the breadth of wide-open eyes and ears for the popular. Gargantuan sentences coupled with current critical jargon may deter the general reader, but specialists in popular culture, African-American studies, political science and American studies will find Iton’s argument that “political intention adheres to every cultural production” challenging, illuminating and groundbreaking. For both lay reader and academician, it may well “compel a revision of our notions of the political.” (June)

Royte (Garbage Land) plunges into America’s mighty thirst for bottled water in an investigation of “one of the greatest marketing coups of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.” As tap water has become cleaner and better-tasting, the bottled water industry has exploded into a $60 billion business; consumers guzzle more high-priced designer water than milk or beer and spend billions on brands such as Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coke’s Dasani that are essentially processed municipal water. It’s an unparalleled—and almost exclusively American—“social phenomenon.” With journalistic zeal, Royte chronicles the questionable practices of Nestle-owned Poland Springs and documents the environmental impact of discarded plastic bottles, the carbon footprint of water shipped long distances and health concerns around the leaching of plastic compounds from bottles. Not all tap water is perfectly pure, writes Royte, still, 92% of the nation’s 53,000 local water systems meet or exceed federal safety standards and “it is the devil we know,” at least as good and often better than bottled water. This portrait of the science, commerce and politics of potable water is an entertaining and eye-opening narrative. (June)

In a time when environmental reporting has become justifiably gloomy, this book is a refreshing breath of pragmatic optimism. Environmentalist White highlights quirky, visionary individuals and their innovative methods to improve the quality of the ranges and mountains of the West, such as biologist Bill Zeedyk, who restores riparian areas and water tables using sticks and rocks to simply and cheaply mimic a creek’s natural meandering, and activist Dan Dagget, who has been able to unite environmentalists and ranchers by focusing on common goals (open space, wildlife, restored streams). White promotes implementation of the “New Ranch,” operating “on the principle that the natural processes that sustain wildlife habitat, biological diversity and functioning watersheds are the same processes that make land productive for livestock... where erosion has diminished, where streams and springs, once dry, now flow, where wildlife is more abundant, and where landowners are more profitable as a result.” White’s vision of stewardship, openness to new ideas, giving as well as taking, and flexibility will inspire anyone who loves humanity or the great outdoors. (June)

It’s a much bemoaned fact that Americans who fail to sock money away in savings accounts and investments risk severe hardship once they hit retirement age or fall on tough times. What’s far less obvious is how to turn these overspenders into savers. Wilcox draws insights from economics and psychology to tackle this challenge in his slim but sensible volume. His analysis of our prodigal ways is slight—a historian or cultural critic might have handled this question with more depth and aplomb—but his policy prescriptions are comprehensive, insightful and well argued. Wilcox explores radical measures, such as replacing the income tax with a consumption tax, as well as simple and easily implemented programs such as automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans and requiring more fee disclosure from investment firms. He observes that current incentives skew toward the wealthy and highlights ways to give lower-income Americans access to savings vehicles like mutual funds. As Wilcox wisely notes, there’s no magic bullet for America’s savings crisis, but a patchwork of practical solutions, small and large, could significantly increase workers’ long-term financial security. (June)

In the 1960s, “dropping out” required nothing more than turning on, tuning in and perhaps a copy of Carlos Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan. In its modern incarnation, “unplugging” from routine requires more preparation and purpose, and is not necessarily meant to be permanent. Whitney-Reitner advises disengaging from the rat race responsibly and with a safety net, and in this earnest self-help guide, she addresses its every facet—from dealing with mail, pets and mortgage payments when away to finding the perfect life coach and taking time off from work for a “corporate sabbatical.” Whitney-Reitner believes unplugged time is well spent being constructive—no lounging around hippie communes for Generation Xers—and she advocates volunteering, building houses and working with children and includes inspiring testimonials from successful unpluggers. Notably absent in this book are the practical considerations—the dangers of leaving a job during a recession, for example—and accounts of unsuccessful unplugging. The resource guide, however, is undeniably useful, as are the author’s suggestions for the less adventurous to unplug without leaving their armchairs and enjoy and be grateful for the life they do have. (June)

In this trim but comprehensive and engaging book, Barringer and Ireland (Entrepreneurship: Successfully Launching New Ventures) dispel the myths that prevent the typical American from starting a new business. The authors weave their academic research and business incubation fieldwork with stories from real life startups, refuting claims that entrepreneurship entails colossal risk, requires a great deal of money, demands extensive business experience or is dependent on the perfect product or service. This book is refreshingly pragmatic while still being encouraging; it addresses the obstacles at each stage of entrepreneurship, including overcoming psychological barriers to quitting a day job, identifying and developing the right idea, financing and running effective public relations and marketing campaigns on shoestring budgets. Simultaneously upbeat and instructive, this book offers the aspiring business owner a practical push toward taking the entrepreneurial plunge. (June)

“Before cities existed, there were stakes and ruins left by foreigners, blind travelers, and prophets,” writes Khudayyir in this densely poetic, ornately written tribute to the southern Iraqi city of Basra. Fluidly translated by Hutchins, this nearly stream–of-consciousness tale takes the reader on a journey through the history and physical topography of Iraq’s second city. “These were the city gates and historic arches that raiders and scowling, armed conquerors had breached,” Khudayyir writes, “carrying within their helmets the plague, syphilis, poisoned amulets, and dark lusts.” His tale unfolds as a series of finely etched vignettes of a city long storied and a seething ever-changing populace. A prosperous port city, Basra, in Khudayyir’s rendering, lives and dies by its rivers—the Tigris and Euphrates. “The river flows to its inevitable mouth, acquiring from its historic flow topographic knowledge of its banks, the land surrounding it, its tributary rivers, and the sea that embraces it,” he writes. Chapters flow like the rivers, touching on neighborhoods, history and colorful characters. Khudayyir concludes with an extended rumination on the condition of the city during the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s. Since the book was originally published in Cairo, Egypt, in 1997, the reader is left wondering what Khudayyir might write today about his beloved city after five years of war and insurgency. (June)

Anna Øglende Spafford’s life was a classic 19th-century epic, related perceptively by Geniesse. Born in Norway in 1842, she came to the United States as a child, buried her father on the Minnesota prairie, then married evangelical lawyer Horatio Spafford in Chicago. Somewhat unhinged by the Great Chicago Fire, bankruptcy and a shipwreck that drowned four of their daughters, the couple founded a Protestant sect called the Saints; hounded by creditors, they absconded to Jerusalem in 1881 with a handful of followers to await the Second Coming. With Horatio’s death, Anna tightened her grip on her “American Colony” cult, abolished marriage and reshuffled couples into chaste “affinities.” Then she turned her sect into a business empire, including a profitable hotel, farms, bakeries and Jerusalem’s first telephone company, all staffed by Swedish converts. Whew! “There are neither villains nor saints in this story,” notes Geniesse (Passionate Nomad), setting her sprightly account against the era’s Christian Zionism and millennial hysterias. Geniesse paints her charismatic heroine as part ur-feminist survivor, part totalitarian despot. (June 17)

In this hagiographic narrative of Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 Democratic presidential primary campaign, RFK seems less a politician than a moral teacher. Hammering away at the immorality of poverty and racism, he confronted crowds with their own ethical culpability and, regarding the Vietnam War, reminding campus audiences of the unfairness of student draft deferments. Rapturous throngs of voters ate it up and propelled RFK to a string of victories. Clarke (Ask Not) positions Kennedy as a prototypical New Democrat who appealed to minorities and working-class whites alike by mixing liberalism with themes of law and order, free enterprise, jobs and local control. But in Clarke’s telling, Kennedy’s essence is spiritual rather than political; he is a Christ figure— comforting sick children, utterly sincere in his beliefs and incapable of political pandering, haunted by forebodings of his assassination, his charisma “tactile and mystical... he had to let people see, touch, and commune with him.” Clarke emphasizes the Kennedy campaign’s contemporary resonance, but his book is more revealing as an iconic portrait of the passionate, turbulent zeitgeist of the 1960s. 8 pages of b&w photos. (June)

In this remarkable portrait of the doctors and administrators at Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center, bestselling author Salamon (The Devil’s Candy; The Christmas Tree) illustrates the complex machine that is the modern hospital, vying to provide cutting-edge facilities and compassionate care, while making money doing it. Salamon compares Maimonides to a factory, where medicine is “industrialized,” streamlined for efficiency and as dependent on skilled administrators as on talented physicians. Located in a Brooklyn neighborhood known for its simmering mix of ethnicities and cultures, particularly its influential ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, Maimonides is insanely busy, with perhaps the most densely packed emergency room of its size. A new resident in obstetrics learns to “count to ten and say 'push’ in Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian, and at least two other languages that I’m not sure what they were.” Administrators juggle budgets, politics and feuding staff while insurance paperwork increases mistakes and steals treatment time. Although it’s “hard to deconstruct the Tower of Babel when you’re standing in the middle of it,” Salamon succeeds in providing a completely unique, three-dimensional and compellingly human perspective of the demanding work—both frustrating and rewarding—that is not always apparent to hospital patients and their families. (May 19)

Handler, Sex and the City star (Charlotte’s bald, tubby husband) and author of the cancer-survival memoir Time on Fire, struggles to grow up in this collection of autobiographical essays. Handler has issues to rehash, including his bitterness over the years lost to illness, complaints about medical care he received, showbiz wrangles and, above all, his testy relationships with women. This last topic provokes both showy self-reproach and sly self-exculpation; “[m]y progress toward maturity might have been lethargic,” he allows, “but it’s inaccurate to state... that anything was 'my fault.’ ” Not the breakup with uncommunicative fiancée Patricia; or the rift with Abbey Leigh, a sexual dynamo given to screaming rages; or the jealous fit his future wife, Elisa, threw when he innocently mentioned another woman’s breasts. Handler has funny stories to tell (one mega-agent suggested he package his bout with leukemia as an amusement park ride) and desultory thoughts to dispense (“Do I think there’s a God? I don’t know”). Unfortunately, his egotism often robs him of perspective, as when he jumbles together Elisa’s abortion with his small-claims lawsuit over a botched floor refinishing. As Handler parades, bemoans—and excuses—his erstwhile callow self-involvement, his confessional drips with it. (May)

Together with Morris, a New York Times music writer, celebrated operatic bass Hao Jiang Tian tells the colorful story of how he became the first world-class Western opera singer from China. In Beijing, separated from his parents (both military officer/musicians whose Communist loyalties were under suspicion), Tian chafed against the artistic restrictions of China’s Cultural Revolution. “Everything natural became unnatural,” he writes. Tian is 20 before he discovers his singing voice, and he is 30—having played accordion, studied Verdi and attended an American college on scholarship—by the time he sings at the Metropolitan Opera in 1991. Tian’s adventures are driven by pluck, yuan (fate) and romance, and spun with a raconteur’s skill, the narrative’s chronological rush spiked with apt foreshadowing, flashbacks and endearing humor. His insider’s take on the rigors of operatic training and backstage blowups, along with his career details (roles from Mephistopheles to poet Li Bai) and name-dropping (Pavarotti, Domingo), are a fan’s delight. Most remarkable, however, is the way that Tian’s concern for family and country, along with the details of his life in music, create a metaphor for an emerging self-awareness. (May)

From Ethiopia to Panama to Portland, journalist Weissman shadows today’s vanguard “coffee guys” in their pursuit of the perfect, caffeinated beverage. With increased demand for specialty roasts superior to the mass-marketed offerings at Starbucks, Weissman illustrates how the origin, flavor compounds and socioeconomic impact of a cup of coffee are relevant now more than ever. Alongside industry leaders from some of the U.S.’s top roasters—Counter Culture, Intelligentsia and Stumptown—Weismann treks to the birthplace of coffee, remote plantations, and international competitions where the best coffees in the world are cupped (or tasted), scored and where winners like Panamanian grower Hacienda La Esmeralda’s revered “Geisha” coffee earn $130 per pound. Visiting both ends of the producer-consumer spectrum, she sheds light on the partnership between those who sell premium coffee and the impoverished who farm it—examining how specialty standards enable improved production, exceptional beans, fair prices and fatter pockets across the board. On the imbibing end, Weissman penetrates today’s amped-up coffee culture: its sleek coffee bars, tattooed coffee-geeks behind the counters, fiercely competitive roasters working alongside champion baristas. Tagging along behind the main characters in today’s specialty coffee scene, Weissman travels from the exotic to the expected to artfully deconstruct the connoisseur’s cup of coffee. (May)

As publisher of the Montauk Pioneer in the early 1960s, which branched into the longtime Hampton free newspaper, Dan’s Papers, Rattiner knows his territory and shares a collection of charming early memories of the people among whom he lived and worked. Most of the recollections are from the 1960s, when the author, a Harvard graduate student in his 20s, having been introduced to Montauk when his father moved the family there to take over White’s Pharmacy in 1956, runs the press largely by himself, borrowing a thousand dollars from local banker Merton Tyndall. While knocking door-to-door to sell ad pages and drum up stories, he meets the remarkable seasonal denizens of the Hamptons, such as the lovely daughter of Harrison Tweed III, Babette; the drinkers at Jungle Pete’s, tightlipped about their dead crony Jackson Pollock; artist Balcomb Greene; the sun-bathing lady proprietors of the Memory Motel; reclusive John Steinbeck; and the real-life shark hunter Frank Mundus. As the Hamptons change from sleepy beaches to celebrity enclaves, the likable Rattiner boasts (modestly) about refusing an interview with then nobody Richard Nixon and playing baseball with notables such as George Plimpton and Bill Clinton. (May)

Dawidoff (The Fly Swatter) brilliantly takes the reader through his journey of childhood struggles in this moving memoir. Uprooted from Washington, D.C., at the age of three, Dawidoff moved north with his sister, Sally, and mother to begin a new life in New Haven, Conn. There, the author reveals the beginning of his love affair with baseball, first with the New York Mets before changing his allegiance to the Boston Red Sox. The national pastime provided Dawidoff some of his happiest moments growing up, amid a world of pain—most of which evolved from his father’s debilitating mental illness that made weekend visits to Manhattan unbearable as he grew older. Other struggles from his boyhood—from the typical adolescent bullying and first experiences with love to the devastating death of his beloved Aunt Susi—are told in vivid and heartbreaking detail. Simultaneously, Dawidoff paints a picture of his remarkable mother, who selflessly provided for him and his sister. It’s the Red Sox—baseball’s then longtime losers—that provide Dawidoff the most happiness, because of the parallels he draws with his own life: “I was grateful to the Red Sox for taking me out of myself, giving me something to anticipate, for not being too happy themselves.” (May)

For his first book, baseball fan Jones has collected 51 interviews he conducted during the 2006 and 2007 baseball seasons. Presented in a q&a format preceded by short bios, the interviews cover all the bases: owners, general managers, managers, coaches, players, umpires, media, vendors and ushers. The talks are fairly uniform, as speakers discuss how they reached their current positions, what their jobs entail and what it means to them to work in baseball. Many of the players and execs play it pretty close to the vest, but a few recognizable names open up to Jones. For example, MLB’s VP for on-field operations, Bob Watson, chats candidly about a host of colorful topics including how the Yankees overpaid when they traded for Chuck Knoblauch, who could “have been had for, maybe not a broken bat, but a good bat.” But it’s the small nuggets of information that epitomize this book: how much does a ballboy make? what’s Omar Vizquel’s preferred bat? where does Boston’s Sausage Guy go to the bathroom? As Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan writes in the book’s foreword, just “skip through the pages” and find someone that interests you. (May)

In 1880, the French government sent 100 men into the unexplored Sahara to scout the path for a possible railway from the coast. Here, Asher depicts a grim saga of treachery, endurance and slaughter along the way. In the desert, the expedition ran afoul of Tuareg tribes, warlike nomads who had resisted outsiders for a thousand years. Betrayed and attacked, the surviving soldiers made a grueling four-month trek back to the coast; only a dozen survived, some by eating their companions. As a veteran explorer of the Sahara, Asher offers intense descriptions of desert customs and landscapes, so much so that at times the actual narrative of the expedition fades in comparison. No Frenchman survived to write his memoirs (only Arab soldiers attached to the expedition), and the lack of primary source material makes Asher’s task unenviable. Far too many times, he attempts to enliven the story by explaining what the soldiers thought and felt, even as they are being killed. Despite these shortcomings, his telling remains a fascinating saga of a brutal desert world suspended somewhere between the medieval and the modern. (May)

When Klein (Straight Up and Dirty) becomes pregnant and is instructed to gain weight, she flashes back to the years of trying to reduce. As an overweight eight-year-old, she was told, “You will struggle with this for the rest of your life.” Eventually, she got fed up with what she calls “fatnalysis” and her only concern was how to get thin. Yet the emotional distance of her mother, the cutting remarks of her father and a severe beating by her aunt explain why she felt her body was “too big to hold the nothing that was in me.” In school, “fat meant unpopular, not unhealthy.” Even her father laughs when hearing Klein’s nickname, “Moose.” At 13, she attended fat camp, where girls holding their own rolls of fat “made me feel less alone.” Klein movingly relates the humiliation she endured from other campers and her flirtation with bulimia. But in the end, the narrative is less of a journey than a slog. While capturing the agonies of the unpopular, Klein succinctly sums up society’s attitude to overweight women. But the insights are obvious: society is cruel to fat kids, and kind to thin ones. (May)

Famed sports photographer Iooss’s talent is unmistakable, but this rather unorganized collection of more than 150 of his greatest shots does him a disservice. A brief introduction by Michael Jordan, a frequent Iooss subject, adds little to the subsequent images, which range from Jordan and his fellow Bulls alum Scottie Pippen to a group of boys playing baseball on a Havana street corner. Sprinkled throughout is commentary by Iooss on particular shots, including a pair of portraits featuring surfing greats Laird Hamilton and Kelly Slater, and several midair shots of Jordan and his trademark slam dunk. For readers unfamiliar with each famous face in sports history, the lack of titles will be irritating, and the index only adds to the confusion. The collection is arranged neither chronologically nor by sport, making it difficult to come away with an idea of Iooss’s evolution as a photographer during his almost 50 years behind the camera. Iooss captured some of the greatest moments on and off fields, courts and rinks, but this portfolio doesn’t do him justice. (May)

After the publication of her first book of self-transformation (A Year by the Sea) in 1999, Anderson writes of being consumed by a pressing schedule and a web of family cares that have derailed her from her original trajectory of self-truth. While her first journey consisted of separating herself from a previous life that had defined her as compliant and dependent (a wife and mother), her current journey involves taking stock of the progress and strengths gained in the previous 10 years. She attempted to get back on track by discounting “counterfeit journeys” (such as illusory ambition), refusing to be blackmailed by her ailing mother and resisting the urge to join her grown children’s already-charged households over Christmas. Instead, she found sustenance in weekend seminars with other women; a pilgrimage to Monomoy, Cape Cod; and a magical three-week stint to the island of Iona, Scotland. Self-help platitudes abound, as Anderson quotes her mentor Joan Erikson (“The most important thing is to share what you know”), and her similes grow tiresome (she compares herself to a tangled, empty lobster trap). For readers eager for more, though, she does drop hints of marital discord and of leaving her journey unfinished. (May)

A “drunkard’s walk” is a type of random statistical distribution with important applications in scientific studies ranging from biology to astronomy. Mlodinow, a visiting lecturer at Caltech and coauthor with Stephen Hawking of A Briefer History of Time, leads readers on a walk through the hills and valleys of randomness and how it directs our lives more than we realize. Mlodinow introduces important historical figures such as Bernoulli, Laplace and Pascal, emphasizing their ideas rather than their tumultuous private lives. Mlodinow defines such tricky concepts as regression to the mean and the law of large numbers, which should help readers as they navigate the daily deluge of election polls and new studies on how to live to 100. The author also carefully avoids veering off into the terra incognita of chaos theory aside from a brief mention of the famous “butterfly effect,” although he might have spent a little more time on the equally famous n-body problem that led to chaos theory. Books on randomness and statistics line library shelves, but Mlodinow will help readers sort out Mark Twain’s “damn lies” from meaningful statistics and the choices we face every day. (May 13)

Pringle (Food, Inc.), former Moscow bureau chief for the Independent, offers a well-researched and well-written study of the murder of an outstanding Soviet geneticist and the ideological perversion of science. Pringle details the life and career of Nikolai Vavilov (1887–1943) through his rise in the early Soviet scientific establishment and awarding of the Lenin Prize. Vavilov was a scientist’s scientist, traveling the world to collect seeds and plants unavailable in Russia in order to transform “Soviet and even world agriculture, and ensure the survival of humanity through an adequate food supply.” He was one of the U.S.S.R.’s top scientists when Soviet authorities fell in love with the now-discredited notions of a rival scientist, Trofim Lysenko, who believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Using recently opened archives, Pringle is able to detail Vavilov’s arrest on trumped-up charges of sabotage and spying, his torture and death in prison. Pringle has added another page to the lengthy tale of the deadly workings of the Soviet bureaucracy—and the toll of Stalin’s terror on the world by turning science into propaganda. (May)

Kauffman, a complexity theorist at the University of Calgary, sets a huge task for himself in this provocative but difficult book: to find common ground between religion and science by redefining God as not a “supernatural Creator” but as “the natural creativity in the universe.” That creativity, says Kauffman, defies scientific assumptions that the biosphere’s evolution and human activity can be reduced to physics and are fully governed by natural laws. Kauffman (At Home in the Universe) espouses emergence, the theory of how complex systems self-organize into entities that are far more than the sum of their parts. To bolster the idea of this “ceaselessly creative” and unpredictable nature, Kauffman draws examples from the biosphere, neurobiology and economics. His definition of God as “the fully natural, awesome, creativity that surrounds us” is unlikely to convince those with a more traditional take on religion. Similarly, Kauffman’s detailed discussions of quantum mechanics to explain emergence are apt to lose all but the most technically inclined readers. Nonetheless, Kauffman raises important questions about the self-organizing potential of natural systems that deserve serious consideration. (May)

To rescue the dead from oblivion, examine America’s ethnic diversity and highlight shifts in cemetery mores over time, cultural historian Yalom (A History of the Breast) and her photographer son (Colonial Noir) traveled to more than 250 American cemeteries across the country. From the ancient Native American Etowah mounds in northern Georgia (abandoned around 1550, when the tribes were presumably destroyed by European diseases) to Rhode Island’s Touro Jewish Cemetery, established in 1677 (it inspired a moving poem by Longfellow), Yalom examines the ways gender, class and culture affected how people were buried. New Orleans’s cemeteries, for instance, show discrepancies between white and black residents: whites were buried in aboveground tombs, blacks in soggy earth that sometimes forced remains back up to the surface. Chicago’s Waldheim holds Gypsies and anarchist Emma Goldman, while the moneyed aristocrats Marshall Field and Cyrus McCormick ended up in Graceland Cemetery. While rich, interesting nuggets abound, the mount of time and territory covered results in some shallow analysis. 80 b&w photos. (May 15)

Popular historian Kershaw (The Bedford Boys) chronicles the extraordinary WWII heroism of the crew of the USS Tang, “the deadliest submarine operating in the Pacific,” in this spellbinding saga. The Tang’s captain, Cmdr. Richard O’Kane, was a celebrated maverick whose “contempt for the enemy was absolute.” He was offered the opportunity to operate alone in the dangerous Formosa Strait, and the boat’s crew sank 13 ships on “one of the most destructive patrols of the war.” But the last torpedo malfunctioned and boomeranged on the Tang, killing half the crew instantly and sinking the sub. The explosion threw O’Kane and several others into the ocean, but most of the rest were trapped below; only nine of 87 survived. They were picked up by a Japanese patrol boat and taken to a POW camp, tortured and starved. O’Kane, who earned the Medal of Honor, weighed only 88 pounds when liberated. Relying on interviews with survivors and oral histories, and writing with his customary verve, Kershaw delivers another memorable tale of uncommon courage. 16 pages of b&w photos. 100,000 first printing; 10-city author tour. (May)

McCullough, an editor at Lyons Press, debuts as an author with this disappointing popular history of WWII submarine warfare. The USS Sculpin and USS Sailfish were built “side by side” at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. Both subs were assigned to the Pacific Fleet, where, in 1943, the Sculpin was sunk by the Japanese destroyer Yamagumo. The Japanese transferred 41 survivors to two aircraft carriers—the Unyo and the Chuyo—bound for Japan. Unaware of the Sculpin’s fate and acting on intelligence from the naval code breakers, the Sailfish intercepted and sank the Chuyo; only one of the Sculpin’s men on board survived. He and the Unyo’s contingent of Americans spent the remainder of the war in Japanese captivity. Not only is the link between the two American subs tenuous, but the author tries with limited success to assimilate an account of the U.S. Navy’s code-breaking operation that resulted in “hot tips to the submarine command.” The account of the Sculpin’s sinking is harrowing, but it’s the singular highlight in a tedious narrative weighed down with extraneous material. (May 13)

Sauerwein, a former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the L.A. Times, delves into a puzzling kidnapping case with penetrating true crime reporting. She describes 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck’s disappearance from his rural Missouri hometown, while riding his bike in 2002. He was abducted by Michael Devlin, an innocuous-seeming pizza-shop manager who repeatedly sexually abused and tortured Shawn for four years. In a strange twist, Devlin also assumed a fatherly role and Hornbeck became his “son”; even given freedom to go out alone, Hornbeck never tried to escape. Shawn was joined by another kidnapped boy, Ben Ownby, four days before the police nabbed Devlin in January 2007. The unusual psychological aspects of Hornbeck’s captivity and his failure to attempt to escape are explained, according to Sauerwein, by the Stockholm syndrome, which leads a captive to bond with his captor. An impeccable, on-target true crime narration, this book of loss, perversity and redemption illuminates not only the desperate pangs of a predator’s sexual hunger but the steadfast love of two families for their missing children. (May)

The fascinating but not fully satisfying new book by Nobel prize-winner Naipaul is a curious collection. These five nonfiction pieces have no thematic through-line or argument, wandering instead through pockets of memoir, literary criticism, history and gossip. Naipaul is well-versed for this type of journey, as his past forays into fiction, travel writing and autobiography have proven, and his ability to thoroughly engage with both the stylistic flaws of Flaubert’s novel Salammbô and an early biography of Gandhi within the space of a few pages is both illuminating and impressive. One of the loose organizing themes of the book is Naipaul’s relationships with other writers and books, a subject on which he expounds fully and often with more than a touch of spite. In “An English Way of Looking,” on the British writer Anthony Powell, a good friend during Naipaul’s early years in London, Naipaul criticizes Powell’s writing unrelentingly, then paints extraordinarily unflattering portraits of Auberon Waugh and Phillip Larkin as punishment for their criticism of Powell. Nonetheless, Naipaul’s latest offers an honest portrait of a major international writer’s perspective from late in life. (May 5)

The spirit of Montaigne is invoked more than once in these 20 essays on the thorny question of the nature of truth in nonfiction. Lazar writes, “Nonfiction blends fact and artifice in an attempt to arrive at truth, or truths. This frequently includes great leaps of the imagination.” In personal essays, diary excerpts, prose poems and parts of film scripts, distinguished writers grapple with the ethical dilemmas posed by memoirs, autobiographical essays and “creative” nonfiction. Phyllis Rose and Nancy K. Miller raise issues of privacy: the impossibility of telling one’s life story without involving others. Kathryn Harrison references Magritte’s account of his mother’s suicide, ”true” only in the way he imagined it, and her own conviction that she was responsible for her mother’s disappearance. Confessing her anguish, Vivian Gornick revisits the minor literary scandal raised when she admitted conflating some incidents in her memoir, Fierce Attachments. She persuasively maintains that memoirs “belong to the category of literature, not of journalism.” While not all the essays are equally trenchant, overall they provide some valuable insights—but no conclusive ethical definitions—about what has become a controversial genre. 18 photos (May)

Tracing the celebrated sex manual from its palm-leaf manuscript origins in third-century India to contemporary coffee-table book, travel writer McConnachie adeptly explains that in addition to teaching 64 erotic techniques, the seven-volume Kamasutra details every aspect of a rich man’s lifestyle, including grooming, home decor and entertainment. The treatise on pleasure also offers a rare ancient depiction of women’s social and sexual lives. The author relates the tale of the famed British explorer and Orientalist Richard Burton, who brought the work to the West. An Indian Army officer in the 1840s, Burton devoted himself to the study of Indian languages and sexual culture. Around 1870, as a British consul, Burton became involved in a project to translate obscure erotic classics into English (though contrary to popular belief, he did not translate the Kamasutra himself) and masterminded the work’s promotion in a repressive Victorian climate. McConnachie also relates the key role of Foster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot as Burton’s collaborator. Though less titillating than the topic would imply, this is a solidly researched, absorbing glimpse into the history of erotica publishing. 8 pages of color illus. (May 27)

The history of contemporary art, writes Heartney (Postmodernism), a contributing editor to Art in America, offers a “tapestry of stories” in an innovative, intellectually vigorous and superbly illustrated survey. In this era of “anarchic pluralism,” master narratives are inappropriate, and Heartney thus organizes her vividly written study thematically (“Art and Time,” “Art and Narrative”) rather than chronologically, and artists range from Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and other “high kitsch” creators to the “participatory” works of artists such as Nam June Paik and Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Heartney’s focus is sharp and selective, and her approach complexly postmodern: the “ever-proliferating universe” of Matthew Ritchie’s installations are discussed in the context of Roland Barthes, Cindy Sherman’s photographs as Bakhtinian carnival. Participatory art, Heartney argues in her last chapter, is “a direct challenge to cherished assumptions about the meaning of art,” whose “democratization” may be the most significant force in art today. This exceptional survey will have wide appeal—from the generalist to the scholar interested in a work that’s both perceptive and energetic. (May)

Former model Freston (The One) writes intimately about healing and finding wellness through “incremental changes that vault us to a new experience of ourselves.” Peppered with examples from Freston’s own path to more conscious, healthier living (quitting smoking, becoming vegan), the book methodically addresses what it means to be healthy in mind, body and spirit and how the three are inextricably intertwined. Some of Freston’s prescriptions—such as cleansing, meditation and yoga—are familiar and feel like Hinduism and Buddhism lite—but her contention that “[w]e cannot thrive as individuals without tending to the ills of this world and all its inhabitants” is powerfully argued. The book devotes considerable attention to promoting vegetarianism (“It’s about having integrity in the most fundamental of our actions—eating”), and in keeping with the book’s attention to “incremental” change, Freston introduces ways for even the most hardened carnivore to start leading a cruelty-free life. With compelling chapters on dealing with crisis and an innovative section on “personal energy management,” Freston invites—and equips—readers to become their own healers in moments of sickness, despair and loss. (May)

In this meticulously researched book, Shaheen (Reel Bad Arabs) spotlights anti–Muslim and Arab stereotypes and probes the intersections of popular culture and foreign policy. The author investigates the close ties between Hollywood studios and Washington and recounts how, historically, the strategic stereotyping of populations has been used to garner popular support for governmental policies, citing the career of Leni Riefenstahl and speeches by Lenin and Goebbels to illustrate film’s long history as a propaganda vehicle. In an index of more than 100 post-9/11 films, the book depicts and debunks the most prevalent stereotypes of “reel Arabs”—“exotic camel-riding nomad,” oppressed maiden, corrupt sheikh, terrorist. Dehumanizing portrayals of Arabs have real consequences, according to Shaheen; he draws correlations between the media’s depiction of Arabs and the massive support for the invasion of Iraq, the “wanton” killing of Iraqi civilians and the escalating number of hate crimes against Arabs (or people who look like Arabs) in the United States. Unfortunately, after his superbly readable historical survey, Shaheen’s list of solutions—entertainment summits and sample pro-Arab film treatments—seem disappointingly prosaic. Still this book’s scope and its impassioned delivery make for an insightful and rewarding read. (May)

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Sheeler (Obit: Inspirational Stories of People Who Led Extraordinary Lives) pays eloquent tribute to the soldiers who have died in Iraq and their devastated families. The author spent two years shadowing Maj. Steve Beck, a marine in charge of casualty notification, as he delivered the news of battlefield death to families. Sheeler puts readers in Beck’s shoes as he walks up to houses, delivers the knock on the door so dreaded by military families and tries to comfort distraught spouses and parents. Sheeler provides intimate sketches of the fallen soldiers—like Marine Staff Sgt. Sam Holder, who died while drawing enemy fire away from an injured comrade—and follows up as grieving families try to put their lives back together. The children left behind are often the most tragic figures: the young son of army PFC Jesse Givens asks if he can “be a little boy again” when he goes to heaven so that he can play with his dad. Dedicated to “everyone who opened the door,” Sheeler’s book is a devastating account of the sacrifices military families make and should be required reading for all Americans. (May)

Former pro wrestler and Minnesota governor Ventura (Do I Stand Alone?) has been awakened out of semiretirement by his outrage over the grievous state of the country and his need to once again exercise his enormous ego by rehashing events from his life and political career. He holds forth in his typical blunt, anti-intellectual style on a range of topics including the Rolling Stones, Fidel Castro and 9/11 conspiracy theories. His diatribes are loosely linked to a travelogue as Ventura and his wife drive to Baja California in their truck-camper. Excerpts from interviews and his wife’s diaries provide a welcome break from Ventura’s boorish tone (although his anecdotes—particularly one involving the Dalai Lama and the film Caddyshack—are occasionally amusing). The book concludes with Ventura combining his three passions: wrestling, politics and self-adulation when he imagines running for President on a WWE ticket. Whether the reader will find that a horrifying fantasy or a hilarious one will largely determine how they feel about this book. (May)

In this demanding book, Weber (Theatricality as Medium) analyzes Benjaminian theory and its potential, presenting a close reading of Walter Benjamin at his most energetic and complex. Focusing on the critic’s favorite suffix, “-abilities” (invoked in his discussions of communicability, iterability, impartability, knowability and reproducibility), the author explores Benjamin’s contention that just because something is communicable does not mean it is communicated; therefore, that sense of potential (as opposed to the activity itself) is where serious examination ought to begin. The book is not meant to be easy going and demands prior understanding of theory and critical and philosophical jargon to fully mine its gems—such as when Weber deftly extends Benjamin’s seminal work on media to the present time and reasserts Benjamin’s mastery of using theater as both metaphor and object of study. An essay on detail (“the detail remains, even today, the uneasy residence that God is condemned by language to share with the Devil”) provides lighter entertainment. Through Benjamin, Weber illuminates what happens between what is written and what is read and the true impossibility of defining any sort of straight line between those two points. (May)

The bin Ladens are famous for spawning the world’s foremost terrorist and building one of the Middle East’s foremost corporate dynasties. Pulitzer Prize–winner Coll (Ghost Wars) delivers a sprawling history of the multifaceted clan, paying special attention to its two most emblematic members. Patriarch Mohamed’s eldest son, Salem, was a caricature of the self-indulgent plutocrat: a flamboyant jet-setter dependent on the Saudi monarchy, obsessed with all things motorized (he died crashing his plane after a day’s joy-riding atop motorcycle and dune-buggy) and forever tormenting his entourage with off-key karaoke. Coll presents quite a contrast with an unusually nuanced profile of Salem’s half-brother Osama, a shy, austere, devout man who nonetheless shares Salem’s egomania. Other bin Ladens crowd Coll’s narrative with the eye-glazing details of their murky business deals, messy divorces and ill-advised perfume lines and pop CDs. Beneath the clutter one discerns an engrossing portrait of a family torn between tradition and modernity, conformism and self-actualization, and desperately in search of its soul. (April 1)

With his prodigious range, versatility and output, Edward Steichen casts a long shadow in 20th-century photography, and this lushly produced book assesses his legacy. Wending through Steichen’s 70-year career, the book presents his early, impressionistic black-and-white nudes and portraits of luminaries such as Rodin as well as atmospheric still lives and editorial fashion shots for Vogue and Vanity Fair. Steichen experimented and excelled in every genre of photography and even his most commercial work shows more aesthetic consideration than product placement. The images are accompanied by insightful essays from a number of expert critics and curators, all of whom place Steichen in his proper context as one of the most influential and controversial artists of his time, alternately reviled as a parvenu and lauded as the Leonardo of photography. This book nimbly navigates divergent critical responses and brilliantly encapsulates the innovations and transformations of this pioneer of modern photography. (Apr.)

In 1958, Allan Kaprow (1927–2006) created the first Happening, a one-time, scripted event that could take place in either a gallery or a public space. Although the term “happening” entered the vernacular, the essayists in this catalogue that accompanies a retrospective at L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art refer several times to their subject as the “best-known unknown artist” of his generation. Before Happenings put him center stage in the art world, Kaprow worked his way through a period of action painting into assemblage and room-sized environments, an artistic path that speaks to his attempts to use the lessons of John Cage to get past the legacy of Jackson Pollock. One essayist describes the Happenings as outgrowths of the assemblages. The thread that runs throughout Kaprow’s work is a search for those moments when art and life are indistinguishable. This desire led to increasingly private performances for only one or two people. Archival material in the Getty Research Institute collection and recent images bring the career and the current exhibition to life. 231 color and 291 b&w illus. (Apr. 21)

Signature

Reviewed by Michael Beschloss

In this modest, elegant, appealing and introspective autobiography, Ted Sorensen writes about his service to John Kennedy as senator and president with a candor that, he confesses, would have been inconceivable while writing his glowing 1965 reminiscence, Kennedy, or while Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was alive. The Nebraska-born Sorensen describes himself as a moralist not unlike his Unitarian father, C.A. Sorensen, a onetime state attorney general (and a Republican). He reproaches himself for still feeling “shame and stigma” about the emotional illnesses of his Russian-Jewish mother, Annis Chaikin Sorensen, and for his two divorces, which will make him feel “embarrassed until my dying day.”

Sorensen does not spare the man who remains his old hero. He declines to “defend or rationalize” JFK’s “carefree misconduct and broken marriage vows,” writing, “It was wrong, and he knew it was wrong.” He criticizes Kennedy’s failure while a senator in 1954 to help censure the Wisconsin demagogue Joseph McCarthy. Unlike some of Kennedy’s most extreme defenders, he does not insist that JFK would have withdrawn American troops from Vietnam after reelection in 1964. Excluded from Kennedy’s glittering social life, Sorensen recalls the president’s “cool crowd” regarded him with “thinly veiled patronizing.” New sidelights include Jackie’s later private observation that her husband was “truly frightened” that Lyndon Johnson might someday become president.

Sorensen knows that history will view him mainly as architect of much of Kennedy’s enduring rhetoric—and the collaborator (at least) on JFK’s famous 1956 book, Profiles in Courage. Such prominence unsettled the Kennedys, who wanted JFK’s speeches and writings to be taken as his own. Sorensen reveals that after the commercial success of Profiles, Kennedy privately gave him a large share of the book’s substantial royalties, and Sorensen wrote his boss a letter pledging not to push for “recognition of my participation” in its writing. The faithful Sorensen felt “crushed” in 1987 when Jackie Onassis wrote him an angry letter implying (unfairly) that Sorensen might be ambitious to seize credit for her husband’s speeches.

Sorensen says he never knew how much his old frostiness and protectiveness of his relationship with JFK estranged some colleagues. Blessed with a happy third marriage, he has clearly mellowed. But for Sorensen, as this book demonstrates, the 45 years since JFK’s assassination—including an important New York legal career, a role advising Robert Kennedy during his presidential race, efforts to win the late Bobby’s Senate seat and an aborted nomination to head Jimmy Carter’s CIA—have been epilogue. As Sorensen painfully observes, when the Kennedy brothers died, it “robbed me of my future.” 16 pages of b&w photos. (May)

Michael Beschloss is the author, most recently, of Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789–1989, just published by Simon & Schuster in paperback.